


The Sour Times

by marchingjaybird



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Community: fandom_stocking, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-09
Updated: 2010-01-09
Packaged: 2017-10-06 00:45:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marchingjaybird/pseuds/marchingjaybird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things are going wrong for Kate and Renee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sour Times

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Fandom Stocking on Live Journal.

After they had been together for a while – after toothbrushes and emergency underwear at one another's apartments; after the gradual exposure of bad, weird and just plain gross habits; after weeks of hollow-eyed pleasure brought on by nights of sleep gladly surrendered – after the relationship had established itself as good and begun its gradual decline towards shit, Kate found the traffic ticket.

It was crumpled and torn and had collected a thin film of dust, a fact of which she was mildly ashamed, though the dust came from underneath her desk and was impossible to see unless one were laying flat on the floor with a flashlight; still there was that obscure guilt instilled in her from a lifetime of fastidious military habit, both her own and her father's. She'd brushed the ticket off and stared at it for a while, Renee's familiar scrawl, the slight wobble in the lettering where she'd thrown Renee – then just Officer Montoya and, be honest, the moniker hadn't exactly fallen out of use – by asking her out. A lot had changed since then. Maybe too much.

She pinned it up next to the television that rarely saw use, a scrap of colored paper that meant nothing to anyone, and she stared at it for a good portion of the afternoon, mostly involuntarily. It would catch her eye as she did crunches, or moved from the kitchen to the bathroom to the bedroom, the endless circuitous route of the apartment dweller with little to do and too much to think about. It started to rain in the early afternoon, pattering against the windows, and Kate abandoned any pretense of productivity, instead opting to settle down with a book.

That was how Renee found her, hours later. She came in soaking wet, shaking rainwater all over the carpet near the door and growling in that familiar way that asked no answer. Kate watched her mildly over the top of her novel; she'd gotten perhaps a third of the way through it, distracted by the odd flashes of memory. Some of them were good, laughter and warmth, the soft swell of Renee's breast in her hand, the tangle of their legs, the distinctly unsexy but comforting press of woolly socks against her ankles in the early cold of the morning.

Some were not so good, and they thrummed in her head as Renee focused dark eyes on her. "You aren't dressed," she said. Kate looked down at herself, at the stained Army sweatshirt and ripped sweatpants, the clear outline of her braless breasts. She shrugged her shoulders and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

"Was I supposed to be?" she asked. Renee made a noise in her throat as she took off her shoes.

"I thought we were going out for dinner."

"I wanted to stay in. It's so cold and wet outside. I was going to cook." The weather was an excuse. Since finding the ticket, Kate had entertained notions of a warm evening in, wine and movies and finger food with the ultimate reward being a night between the sheets in her queen-sized bed. Renee nodded, lips thin, eyes distant.

"That's fine," she answered over her shoulder as she retreated to Kate's room. Kate focused on the ticket and pretended that the helpless weight in her chest was just weariness. She could have convinced herself that it was all right, that Renee was just stressed after a long day at work; being a cop was a hell of a job, and double that if you were a cop in Gotham. They were familiar excuses and fit like a well-worn glove, and some part of Kate that had already let go of the relationship rejected them and simmered, furious with Renee for keeping up the charade and disgusted with herself for buying into it.

Renee came out of the bedroom dressed in a pair of Kate's jeans (too long) and an old t-shirt that shouted in several different fonts and colors that the wearer had run in Gotham's Annual Charity Marathon several years ago. It was too small and too worn and Kate could see the outline of Renee's dark areolas through the thin fabric. The familiar twinge between her legs was a welcome guest and she recrossed her legs, setting the book aside.

"The hell is this?" Renee asked, pacing up to the ticket. She folded her arms beneath her breasts and Kate stared at her back, tracing Renee's compact curves with appreciative eyes. Things may have gone sour, but Renee was as beautiful as ever, lush and ripe with a hardness underneath that only hinted at her physical strength. Kate was no slouch in the fitness department, but Renee bested her at close quarters, fingers around her wrists, strong arms holding her against the bed.

Kate stood and crossed the room, wrapping her arms around Renee's waist and leaning into her. Her fingertips traced dusky skin where it was left exposed by sagging jeans, and she felt Renee break out in gooseflesh. "It's the ticket you gave me when we first met," she said. Words murmured into Renee's neck, lost in her dark hair. Kate squeezed her tighter, willing her to understand. "I found it today."

"Why would you keep it?" Renee sounded bemused, the sharpness of her tongue dulled by Kate's uncharacteristic voyage into nostalgia. Kate wanted to take it into her mouth, bite it until it grew soft and submissive. She indulged her imagination, tangled mental fingers in Renee's hair and guided her face down and warmth blossomed deep in her belly at the prospect. Flesh and blood fingers found Renee's breast and cupped it, the thumb rubbing tight little circles around a hard nipple. Renee sighed in pleasure and leaned further back and Kate answered her.

"I don't know," she said. "Because I'm stupid or sentimental. Or because it was yours." The latter hit the closest to home; Renee's mark was all over the apartment now, her presence inextricably imprinted into the sheets and the clothes and the furniture. Everything reminded Kate of her, but back then there was only the ticket, only the messy scrawl at the bottom where Renee had signed it. Back then she had been Officer Montoya, the hot cop, the cipher, the big question mark in Kate's life.

"Sap," Renee said. There was nothing accusatory about it. Kate accepted it with a kiss, tongue stroking past Renee's soft lips, tasting coffee and whiskey and that sharp coldness that she associated with Gotham.

"What do you want for dinner?" she murmured, lips moving against Renee's mouth, fingers dipping beneath the waistband of the jeans. Renee arched her back and sighed and shook her head.

"Dinner can wait."

And, dammed from the growing sourness of their lives by a single piece of paper, one more night ticked by.


End file.
